Unit 8200, the Israeli Navy SEALs, and the Kellogg Zell Fellows

I just returned from a trip to Israel, having met and built strong relationships with incredible entrepreneurs in Israel. This opportunity was a a part of a Fellowship at the Kellogg School of Management sponsored by Sam Zell to support entrepreneurship. The trip allowed me and my peers in the Fellowship to meet with our sister programs at the University of Michigan and IDC Herzliya and explore our mutual passion for entrepreneurship – a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The IDC Herzliya Zell Entrepreneurship Program has been running for 17 years and has gained an incredible reputation for selecting and cultivating Israel’s strongest entrepreneurial drive and talent. Reading the biographies of the IDC students, the program is filled with former Intelligence Officers, Israeli Navy Seals, and other incredibly selective specializations within the Israeli Defense Forces. After getting past the shock of the sheer impressiveness of their backgrounds, we were even more astounded by the businesses they’re starting – from cryptocurrency management platforms to psychometric employment matching firms.

The program is Israel focuses on new ventures, as opposed to my focus of acquiring and managing a currently successful business, but the commonality of experience and perspective was encouraging; everyone faces the challenge of developing thoughtful ideas that differentiate themselves from a crowd to convince stakeholders – investors, customers, suppliers, sellers, that time shared with the entrepreneur will be fruitful rather than wasted.

On our second day, we were paired up in groups for a four hour competition to sell candy to for a charity. There were no "rules" per se, other than we could only sell candy. I had the wonderful opportunity to work with individuals in all three programs trying to develop a strategy on how best to sell candy for the highest possible return. There were a couple ideas thrown out, from simply asking for sales, to partnering with small businesses to generate Facebook Likes, to buying boxes to package the candy. In hindsight, I think we started out a bit too clever for our own good; we wanted to partner with institutions that would give us substantial reimbursement for social media presence, but unfortunately either weren’t able to locate the decision makers or business owners didn’t know how to value a social media “like.” In the end, we resorted to approaching strangers on the street, asking for them to buy our candy (for some reason, out of an oversized Margarita glass). The most obvious strategy ended up being the most successful for us, I think for a couple reasons:

1. Despite the lessons we hear as children to not take candy from strangers, approaching with a smile allowed us to get right past the initial pause from potential customers. Particularly when it came from a random, well-dressed man approaching randomly and speaking in English rather than Hebrew. (I'm not quite sure how this makes me feel as a person, but as a candy salesman, it was great!)
2. Once we had a customer who was willing to buy candy from us, we really emphasized an upsell – we, as a group, would do whatever the buyer want to embarrass ourselves and they could record it on their phones – which is the reason why there’s now some video floating around on the internet of me dancing the chicken dance to an Israeli pop song.
3. The allure of helping someone is powerful and allowed us to convince potential customers that they could be a part of our mutual success to win a competition – rather than simply because they wanted candy.
4. Location, Location, Location - the old adage in real estate that where you are matters more than what you sell certainly rang true - it was easier to sell when willing buyers were in front of you. We located ourselves around the open air market in the Carmel market in Tel Aviv where teenagers and ready shoppers were located. It's hard to sell when people can't see you

Unfortunately, we did not win the competition – but I’m confident the lessons all the groups learned from the experience were equally useful for our entrepreneurial endeavors. We also had the chance to bond and develop stronger friendships among the group - a win for all of us. In particular, I came away with the following renewed notions:

1. Asking for a sale is hard, but a necessary part of running a business, no matter the scale. I heard multiple times from my group members that “this was outside their comfort zone” – in my mind, I wondered who would be comfortable with trying to aggressively sell unpackaged candy on the street – but we had goals to meet and only one way to achieve them
2. Your customer has to understand the benefits they’re getting – or else you won’t be able to convert, and different customers value different things.
3. Negotiation matters and creating value outside of simply providing a commodity is essential to generating outsized returns (this came in handy when we visited Jerusalem later and had to negotiate with shop vendors outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.)

There are countless stories to recount from the trip to Israel. The trip was an amazing experience to see a new country with a tremendous dedication to building an entrepreneurial culture in its people. Other wonderful parts of the trip included:

• The ZGEN (Zell Global Entrepreneurship Network) Summit, where all of the past and present members of the Zell-sponsored programs got to meet, introduce ourselves, and try to build long-term relationships across borders.
• The trip to the Dead Sea and the springs at Ein Gedi, where we learned about the story of Masada.
• Traveling to Jerusalem and visiting the holy sites. It was hard to conceptualize just how close Christianity’s, Judaism’s, and Islam’s holy sites are to each other until I saw them up close.
• Negotiating for - EVERYTHING - it's fun once you get the hang of it and are willing to press, but strange to an American consumer's perspective of "list price"
• Visiting a Druze Settlement, a unique arrangement where an Arabic people do live in peace with their Israeli neighbors.
• Driving alongside the Syrian and Lebanese borders, where unfortunately peace remains elusive.

(These guys negotiated for tea harder than anyone I have ever seen working on deals in the U.S.!)

We left Israel the evening before a sad series of violent events, thankfully safe but aware of the circumstances which support individuals in Israel taking entrepreneurial risk - it's seems obvious when the risks of life are so present, the risks and opportunities of running a business become much clearer and exciting. A great book about this is Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle. Israel and the middle east are beautiful countries with individuals just like we have in America; all with varied but interesting perspectives - many trying to better themselves and their families' lives through entrepreneurial endeavors.